Max Keiser and Tucker Carlson Talk FTX and the Future of Bitcoin

Economic journalist Max Keiser recently joined Fox News host Tucker Carlson to discuss how FTX went bankrupt.

The two personalities discussed how Bitcoin can fix corruption within the financial system, including at FTX and on Wall Street. 

Crypto and Financial Corruption

In an interview released on Monday, Tucker began by suggesting that FTX’s collapse may be used as an excuse to regulate the crypto. However, Max Keiser argued that Bitcoin is “designed” to be attacked, and only grows more resilient as people try to break it. 

“It’s almost like a litmus test,” he said. “If you are essentially a corrupt individual, like Sam Bankman-Fried, Bitcoin made him more corrupt. If you’re someone who is nobler with intentions, like a Michael Saylor, it elevates you.”

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According to Keiser, Sam Bankman-Fried’s exchange FTX used its own “play money token”, FTT, to enable fraud. He argued that all altcoin promoters do the same, inflating coins with an artificial price to be used as collateral for borrowing real money. 

This, in his view, is comparable to the 2008 financial crisis, in which derivatives were created out of mortgage-backed securities by Wall Street banks. “The music stopped, and the whole house of cards collapsed,” he said. 

In the FTX crisis specifically, Sam Bankman-Fried claims that Alameda research had a multi-billion dollar margin position opened with the firm. However, that margin position was backed by FTT, which SBF claims collapsed too fast in November to be liquidated in time. This left FTX with a negative book balance, allowing a bank run to take place. 

“Sam Bankman Fried is kind of a cross between Bernie Madoff and Charles Manson,” said Kaiser. “You end up with this freaky, fuzzy-haired, larcenistic criminal who’s out there perpetrating the biggest fraud in financial history.”

Rot in the Financial System

Keiser said that regulators failed to enforce the rules on the books to prevent FTX’s collapse, and that SEC chair Gary Gensler was involved with the scandal. 

The journalist believes financial media is equally corrupt, essentially promoting fraud as a business. “The financial times is essentially a bible on committing financial fraud,” he said. 

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Keiser said that Bitcoin remedies corruption in the financial system through its fixed supply. It fixed the core problem with money printing, being that it distorts price signals across various asset classes and enables fraud.